To MissLoreMasterSarah. Sorry for the wait!
It never ceases to amaze her when she sees the silvery disc hanging in the sky, no matter how thin or round it is. The Messenger likes to plan as many overnight trips in the summer wilds as she can because of the special experience of stargazing while spread out on the grass. She not only loves the warm air, the occasional gust of wind slipping into her camping site, the bright, long days, but she also treasures the smell of the greenery. To her it's nearly as nostalgic as the smell of rusted metal, powder, canned peaches, and mould-the smell of the store she'd called home just three years before.
A lot of things have changed, she thinks one night, lying on her back with her hands linked behind her neck. She turns to look at her single travelling partner. He had asked whether he could ride with her, as he'd heard from a Roamer that there was an abandoned 21-st century warehouse not far from Riverside, way out to the northwest. Lina had accepted, knowing that the skies would be clear for at least three days; she had gotten the word from Mags, who was an expert in reading the weather from the skies. She herself is still learning the subtleties of nature, and even after three Burnings and Coolings and many, many moons, she still has so much to learn.
Doon turns to her at the same moment she locks her heavy eyes on him, and he says something that's unclear. She asks him to repeat what he said, and then he slowly articulates, "There's so much out there. So much to learn about. Right?" Right. ...Hadn't she just thought that?
Lina laughs lightly before closing her eyes. And then she's asleep.
And as for Doon: He likes to stare at the moon for as long as he can, trying to see if he can catch even a single slight movement on the rocky surface, despite how far he is. The longest he can go without having to squeeze his eyelids over his watering eyes is twenty-five seconds. It doesn't work. He sighs after the ninth try, and lies back. It's a beautiful summer night, with the perfect temperature and wind velocity to lie outside and look at the stars. Lina told him their timing was just right, and as usual, he found no reason not to believe her. She'd been right.
She sighs next to him. She's asleep. He sees her from the corner of his eyes, so he doesn't turn his head while he tries to take in the shape of her profile. The moonlight's shining on it, shimmering, almost, whenever she shifts from her position.
All of a sudden he's blinking more rapidly than normal.
She is there, asleep, chest rising like a buoy in a pacific sea. He notices that she's grown out. Naturally... It'd been three years since the Egress. But he'd seen her so often that he had probably had no way to really see such a gradual change, not without obsessing. He doesn't want to peek her way again. He doesn't. Yet, quite despite himself, the visuals keep returning to his mind's eye... Imaginings of warm and shapely skin, how they lift with the rise of her single breath... Just the sight, the glimpse of two pointed peaks, peeking through her thin cotton shift, and...
Doon swears lightly before turning over, willing himself to get sleepy. And he does not sleep easy when he finally succeeds, field and mountain and grass whispering silkily to him the suggestive melody of heady, wet, and tongue-tied dreams. Hidden by the clouds, the stars above them slowly circled, blinking.